As thousands of costumed New Orleanians and visitors filled local streets on Mardi Gras (Feb. 13), clasping at plastic beads and holding cups filled with boozy concoctions to celebrate a happy, sunshine-filled day of their lives, three people lost theirs.

By Tuesday night, New Orleans police had begun investigating the scenes of three shootings throughout the city, including two in the immediate vicinity of the parade route. By the time NOPD Chief Michael Harrison joined his officers for the annual sweep of Bourbon Street, marking the end of Carnival, eight people had been shot, including three fatally.

"It's crazy. This is crazy. This is foolish, what are they killing each other for?" questioned one man in the 5100 block of St. Claude Avenue on Tuesday night, where five people were shot, including two who were killed. "This is just foolish for our people to be killing each other. For what?"

It's a question New Orleans has long been struggling to answer.

The man, who declined to give his name, was inside his home six blocks away when he heard the shots fired.

"It sounded like they had a war going on," he said.

Eight years ago, an Air Force reservist said something similar after he climbed down from the ladder holding his two children, as they watched parades roll by on St. Charles Avenue, to tend to a man who had been shot in the abdomen.

The man Parry tended to was one of seven people injured in a Mardi Gras day shooting in 2009. Other victims ranged from a toddler, who suffered a graze wound to the back, and a 50-year-old woman, who was shot in the elbow.

Three men were charged in connection to the shooting, which authorities characterized as two rival groups opening fire upon each other. Those charges were eventually dropped after the case became entangled in the Danziger Bridge scandal.

In the hours before news alerts were pushed to our phones about the shootings this Mardi Gras, a friend and I hit the French Quarter early, dressed as sea creatures, to dance in the streets. My sports reporter husband, graciously accepting his role as our pack mule for the day, wore his usual "costume" of a henley T-shirt, jeans and a baseball cap.

With a raised eyebrow, a friend laughed and said when New Orleanians show up in costume on Mardi Gras, it's actually who we all really are, and my husband is lucky enough to do that every day.

By Tuesday's end, with the city's second Mardi Gras day mass shooting in less than a decade, it would appear New Orleans, too, did exactly that. Yet again, as the revelry of thousands throughout the city continued, the lives of three met a violent end.

But this is not who New Orleans has to be.

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Chelsea Brasted is a metro columnist covering the New Orleans area. Send story ideas, tips, complaints and fan mail to cbrasted@nola.com. You can also text or call 225.460.1350, and follow her on Twitter and Facebook.